Words Unspoken
by prettylittlemasonjar
Summary: "So all day you've heard what? Hugs not drugs? Don't drink and drive? That's what you think of when you hear addiction. You also expect the person to be completely cured. One hundred percent. No slip-ups. Well, I'm not one of those people." Alec shares his story for the third time to a group of high schoolers, though somehow, it never gets easier. All Human.


I breathe in and out a few times in the room. This isn't the first speech I've given about my story. But they all feel like the first. It's my third, and last one to give today. This school does it differently. Instead of one big speech to the entire school at once, they break it up into smaller groups. They bring in a bunch of different speakers, and we all tell our stories to the groups. Today has been very tiring for me, because I'm still recovering, and it takes it's toll. I can't wait to just go home and sleep.

I look up as people start filing in. This group seems to have more girls. I sigh in relief at that. The last group had more boys, and they all sniggered in the back while I was talking. They all take their seats, and the old man who is in charge of this group stands up.

"The last speaker our group will be listening to is Mr. Alexander Lightwood. He is the uncle of our very own Rebecca Lewis." The group claps for me, and I look for Isabelle's daughter, Rebecca. She has Izzy's long raven hair, and Simon's coffee colored eyes. She smiles at me, and I give her the tiniest of smiles back.

"Thanks Mr. Starkweather." I say. Addressing the class, I say, "So all day you've heard what? Hugs not drugs? Don't drink and drive? That's what you think of when you hear addiction. You also expect the person to be completely cured. One hundred percent. No slip-ups." I look around the room. They look bored already.

"Well, I'm not one of those people. I'm not completely better yet. I'm still getting off my addiction. And I'm not your average 'Don't do drugs' or 'Don't have sex, because you will get chlamydia, and die'" All of the girls in the room laugh at my reference to Mean Girls. "So I guess to understand this, I should just start from the beginning."

"My mother and father got divorced when I was young. Probably first grade. Now, if your parents are divorced, and you're comfortable sharing, please raise your hand. Hands hesitantly go up. I start counting. "One. Two, three. Five. Twelve. Seventeen. So seventeen people in this room have divorced parents. There are only like thirty-five kids in here. And seventeen of you have divorced parents. So for those of you without divorced parents, the creak can be nice and clean, or it can be a messy split. Mine was fairly clean. There were a lot of screaming matches in which I'd take my younger sister to another room and read her a book. After the divorce, my mom became depressed. She started taking anti-depressants, and essentially, I was the parent. I made my sister and myself lunches for school, I made us dinners, I did our laundry. My mom just stayed home a lot."

I look at Rebecca. She's paying such close attention. I've never told her my story. This is her first time hearing it.

"One day, my mom saw me making dinner. She asked what I was doing. I told her, 'I'm making dinner for me and Izzy. Because you've been too sad to take care of your kids.' That seemed to get her to snap out of it. She came back to us. She got a job at an office where she worked all the time so that we could keep our house. Again, for those of you who's parents are still together, technically, you're supposed to see your non-custodial parent on Wednesdays and every other weekend. Isabelle, my sister, and I would be lucky to see our dad twice in six months. He got remarried, and had his own son, Max. I love Max. People tend to think that for some reason I dislike him. I love him, I love my step-mom. They weren't the evil people. My step mom did her best to make me feel welcome. And Max was just a baby. How could I not love him? He was so innocent."

So a few years passed, and everything went pretty well. Nothing too drastic. But then in ninth grade, my mom quit her job, went back to college and tried to become a chef. If I thought I didn't see her before, I really didn't see her then. I never saw her. I at least had Izzy though. I had a rough year. I never saw my mom, I had to take care of myself and Izzy. And also, at the time, I was a chunky kid. People picked on me for it. Also, I was gay. I hadn't come out to anyone yet. At all. But I knew that I preferred boys. I wouldn't come out because I knew my dad would never approve, and if I was being picked on for being large, imagine how bad it'd be if I was gay too. The next year, though, is when stuff got really bad. This is where my addiction comes in."

"That year, my sister went abroad to Paris for a year. The whole year. So I was home alone all the time. At the time, I had a best friend. He was openly gay, and he was so comfortable with himself. He flaunted it and he was beautiful. I liked him. We were best friends. We could tell each other nearly anything. And we got more and more comfortable with each other. I thought I had a chance with him. I was ready to come out of the closet for him. I was ready to risk everything for him. So one day he and I were texting, and he told me he was thinking of asking this boy out. He said he had dark hair and blue eyes, and that they were really good friends. I thought he was talking about me. I mean, what was I supposed to think? So what did I say? I said 'I'm sure he likes you back. What's not to love about you?'"

I take a deep breath and look around the room. People are staring intently. I've caught their attention. "I told him to go for it. And he did. He asked out a boy named William. He looked just like me. And so every day I watched this William be happy with the man I still loved. That night, though, I went home, and my addiction began. I was a teenage guy. Teenage guys think they grow enough facial hair to shave. So I had a disposable razor. I pulled it apart so that I had three tiny razor blades. I held one in my hand, looked at it, and dragged it across my hip. I had heard that to do it on your hip was easiest to hide. But because I was fat, it made it awkward to cut my hip. So I just did the wrist."

Some of the girls have their mouths covered with their hands. Its so silent as I tell my story. "Now, just because I started cutting doesn't mean I started wearing only black and black eyeliner and became goth. I acted like myself. I just made sure my sleeves covered them. I started out with four. Four tiny, parallel cuts on my wrist. 'That's all' I told myself, 'All you're gonna do.' But soon I did more. Every day watching William get to kiss and cuddle the man I loved I added more. Soon I ran out of room on my upper wrist." I pull my sleeve up a bit. "I only did it on the first inch of my arm. But then I ran out of room." I pulled my sleeve up a bit more, showing my puckered pink scars. "More and more and more." I say, pulling my sleeve all the way up to my shoulder. "I did both arms like that. A few people noticed them on my wrist, and when I said it was my cat, they didn't do anything. Then, because I was so fat, I started skipping meals. I already didn't eat breakfast, because I didn't have time in the morning. Then I started skipping lunch. I'd 'forget' or throw it away saying I was sick. My best friend never questioned it. He never wondered how I could forget my lunch everyday, or how I could get sick and throw it out so often. He never wondered why I wore sweaters when it was eighty degrees. No said anything."

"So soon, I started skipping dinner too. I'd have zero calorie days. On my mom's days off, I'd eat. I'd take small portions, and drink a lot of water. Immediately after, I'd go to the bathroom, and kneel on the floor next to the toilet. I'd stare at my two finger in disgust. I was disgusted with myself, I was disgusted by my fat. And I was disgusted by my fingers. But I still shoved them down my throat to make myself throw up. I lost so much weight. I had to get all new clothes. I got the smallest clothes, and those were baggy on me. I was so tired all the time. I literally couldn't stay awake in class. The trip between classes had me panting. I lost interest in everything. My grades dropped drastically because I was too tired to do homework, and I was too tired to study. And I still had the burden of being in the closet on my shoulders. But still, no one said anything. I kept this up for about a year."

"I was addicted to cutting, and to making myself sick. It's usually around now that people think, 'If it hurts you so much, why keep doing it' It's an addiction. It's just like drugs or alcohol. No matter how bad you know it is for you, you can't stop. I actually liked it. It was probably the one thing in my life that I had control over. My mom worked insane hours, and my Dad was not reliable. I had no one to talk me out of it. I was the one controlling what happened."

So about a year after all of this started happening, the winter dance was coming up, and I decided to go. I wore my coat there, so that my mom wouldn't find out – it had been a year and she still didn't know – and took it off inside. I had a tee shirt on underneath."

I roll up my sleeves to the length of a tee shirt. "Look at those scars. It's not like you can just not see it. No one said...anything. I was in the open. And no one said anything. Mind you, I was skin and bones too. Not skin and bones like what you call attractive skinny girls with their hips and small stomachs. I was literally skin and bones. I looked like all of those people liberated from concentration camps. My cheeks were hollow, you could count all my ribs, my hip bones stuck out. You could count my vertebrae, and no one said anything"

I look around the room. Some people look horrified. "I decided to leave early. I went home, and didn't bother changing. I wanted to look nice. I went into my mom's bathroom, and grabbed her bottle of anti-depressants. She had them left over from the divorce, sort of as a just in case. I pulled out a dozen or so pills. I stared at them in my hand, crying. I was ashamed of myself, but I couldn't stop myself. I put them in my mouth. I passed out shortly after. I woke up again in a hospital. My best friend, who I still liked by the way, had gone to my house searching for me. He saw me leave and wanted to make sure I was alright. He walked right into my house because it wasn't locked, and he always just came in. He looked in my room, in my bathroom, in the kitchen, living room, Izzy's room, the basement. He was freaking out by then. He finally found me in my mom's bathroom, in a crumpled heap on the floor. He called nine one one, and sat with me. He called my parents, but my mom worked an hour away, and my dad was in a meeting, where if he left he'd be fired. So this guy waited with my unconscious body. He rode with me in the ambulance, and sat outside my hospital bedroom door. As soon as he could be in the room, he sat by my side and held my hand."

People are crying now. I have a knot in my throat just remembering it. It still feels very raw to me. But I continue.

"When I woke up, he was there, still holding my hand. He got up to get my parents, but I asked him to stay with me. I didn't want to face my parents. He sat with me while I thought about everything, he would hum lightly sometimes, in a soothing way. My parents came in soon to check on me, both crying. They said they'd never ignore me again. That I should have gone to them. That they'd do better. The whole time, my crush sat there holding my hand. He stayed with me all day, by my request. We talked, and he hummed some more. The only time he left was when he went to the bathroom. I let him eat my dinner. I had a few bites, but after a year of eating next to nothing, I'd only make myself sick. He and I spent the whole day together. His boyfriend, William kept calling him. I overheard him ask why he was spending his whole day with 'the depressing emo' I also heard my crush break up with William saying he was shallow and emotionless. He would wait for me outside my therapy sessions and slowly, ever so slowly, I started getting better."

Everyone looks like they're regaining their composure. "In the beginning of this speech or life story or whatever, I said I'm still addicted. I am. I still can't eat a full meal without getting sick. I still feel the urge, and occasionally act upon the urge, to cut. I still do. Never, has it been as bad as when I was in high school. Because I had my crush to help me get better."

I see a hesitant hand raise in the room. I focus in on the face, and see that it's Rebecca. "What was your crush's name?" she asks quietly.

I smile at her, and say, "Magnus. A Mr. Magnus Bane." Rebecca is positively beaming, but for the rest of the group, I clarify, "And he and I are now happily married. Coming out to my family was fairly easy. Both looked shocked, like they couldn't believe they had raised a gay son, but neither of them pushed it too far. Izzy didn't even flinch. She just began talking about boys with me. She can home from Paris as soon as she found out about me. So I'm glad to say there is a happy ending to this story." I say. I look around the room at all of the kids. I look at all of their faces. They all look like they were just punched. Which I guess is kind of accurate. It's some pretty heavy stuff. "And questions?" I asked. Everyone looked hollowed out. "No one?" I ask again. "Okay then. Thank you." Everyone claps, and I pick up my things to leave. I get out into the hallway, and hear the door open back up.

I turn around, and see a girl. She has to be only fifteen. At the most. She has brown-red hair and brown eyes, and she's painfully thin. She has on a long sleeve sweater, and without saying a word, she rolls up the sleeve to show me her red scabs. They look like they're only a day old. I look at her sadly. She's so thin, and with her cuts, it looks like she's suffering from the same thing as me. A tear slides down her face, and she hugs me. I'm so tall, so her face is buried in my chest. I hold her tight while she cries into my shirt.

"Shhh. It's okay. It'll be okay. I promise. It will get better." I say soothingly.

"Thank you." she says. He voice sounds like it hasn't been used. "I stopped talking when my mom died. She killed herself. My dad is empty. But no one noticed me withering away. I just kept telling myself that if someone asked if I was okay, I'd try to make myself better. Stop cutting, start eating, talk. But no one asked."

I hug her again, and she looks up at me wiping the tears from her face. "I want to get better now." She said. I smile and feel a tear of my own fall. "Thank you so much." she says. She walks back into the classroom.

I turn around, walk to the lobby of the school, and find Magnus. His outfit is very toned down. I almost would have thought he was someone else. He just has black skinny jeans, a plum button down top, and combat boots. His hair hair gives him away, it's spiked with streaks of purple.

"How's it go?" he asks gently.

"Are you asking how it affected the kids or me?" I ask.

"Mostly you." he says.

"I feel pretty much like shit. Doing this always makes me feel like that." I say. " And I think I need a hug." He pulls me into an embrace, and I breathe in his warm scent of sandalwood. I don't ever want to let go. "It hurts every time. It brings back the feeling of being abandoned. The question of what I did to repel everyone." I whisper.

"It'll be okay, love." he replies. "You know I'm never going leave you. You've done nothing wrong. I love you." I sniff back my tears and look up at his gold-green eyes. His gorgeous eyes that I could start at forever. "I promise." He whispers. He kisses my nose and I smile.

I look up when I hear feet pounding down the hallway. I see Rebecca barreling toward us. "Uncle Magnus! I didn't think you'd be here!" She shouts. He gives her a hug, and she turns to me. Her eyes are slightly red and she's sniffing a lot. She must have been crying too. "I'm glad I got to hear that Uncle Alec. Thanks." she sounds almost shy.

I hug her, and say, "I'm glad you got to hear it, too." It feels strange to have so many people know my story, after hiding it for so long.

"Are you and Uncle Magnus coming for dinner tonight?" she asks hopefully.

I look at Magnus. He shrugs. "Absolutly we're coming for dinner. You can ride with us." I say with a smile. Magnus takes my hand as we walk my sister's daughter to our car. I smile. Even though all of that crap happened to me in the past, Magnus is my future. With him, I'll be okay.


End file.
